We’re Back

imnotme and I moved a little over a week ago, and just got the internet hooked back up this past Saturday. We’ve been enjoying the crap out of this new place, and unpacking, and managing to host what feels like a party a day for the past week since practically everyone we know has come over to see where we live, so neither of us have had much time (or energy) for posting.

I still have a bit of writer’s block left, though, so I’m going to kind of cop out here and post a couple questions, in hopes of sparking a good discussion:

What do you consider to be the greatest (rather, most prevalent) privilege that you currently hold? Let’s leave sex and/or gender out of this one.

Now, consider that same privilege in light of your sex and/or gender. What changes? Anything?

I really do believe that my whims are taken more seriously in academia as a male provided the prof. is sexist. I have also had run-ins with very progressively minded profs who have all but torn me a new one for assuming a whim would be entertained.

Although, now that I think about it, maybe my most profound privilege is having had a really wonderful childhood full of danger, exploration and religious confusion. It turned me into a seeker, which caused me to seek an education. My parents aren’t paying for it or anything. I’m inconveniencing myself to get it in a lot of ways.

1. Economic status. While I’m not well off I have to say that I am very thankful that I am able to get the necessities (home, food, clothing) without much trouble. I dont have a lot left over for other things but I do have what I need and I have never been in a situation where I did not know where my next meal is gonna come from or anything serious like that.

I would suggest your point illustrates the cultural differences between the United Kingdom and the United States. A place where class (God save the Queen!) distinction were more prominent, for lack of a better word, historically. I however, don’t think invalidates my point in anyway.

>2. Barack won, Hillary didn’t.
Well, it depends what you meant by that…
I understood you to mean something along the lines of:
“Barack won over Hilary because he was a man, and this was more important than the fact he was black – Americans were ready to accept a black president but not a woman”

My interpretation of events was that Hilary lost because she was Hilary – just not the right person to be President, in the opinion of the voters, not (largely) because she was a woman. Just because prejudice (of whatever kind) might be the reason for an election result, that doesn’t mean it is.

What woman or what kind of woman do you think we are ready for? Should the GOP have put up Condeleeza? I;d hypothesize that many people would SAY they are willing to vote for a woman, but be easily dissuaded.

What year did African Americans get the right to vote? What year did women?

Well according to wikipedia –
“Race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (15th Amendment, 1870)
and
“On account of sex” (gender) (19th Amendment, 1920)
but in practice as we all know many black men and women were prevented from voting in the Southern states until the 1960s.

What woman or what kind of woman do you think we are ready for?
Well I can’t speculate too much about the USA, not being American – but it’s true that what most people look for in a leader are qualities that people associate with men, and qualities that men in particular are trained to develop.
I don’t doubt that when people judge women politicians, they judge them by “male” standards, regardless of whether they are men or women themselves; but then this is pretty common across all areas of life.

I;d hypothesize that many people would SAY they are willing to vote for a woman, but be easily dissuaded.
maybe, but lots of people said that about Barack Obama – and look how that turned out.

and actually if the Iraq war had gone better, then Condi Rice could easily have been a contender for at least the Vice-Presidency… in my quasi-reliable analysis 😉

I’m going to throw in “not being disabled” (is there a word for that?)
followed by my good economic status, being in the dominant ethnic/cultural group, being male, and being hetero…

I’m not sure that being a man or a woman makes much difference to the level of privilege you have or don’t have if you are disabled (not that I have much of an idea) especially since physically disabled people are often thought of as being quite sexless, whether they are male or female.
Since I don’t know much about it, does anyone here have any experience with it?

I think it’s hard to really tell what privilege gives you most advantage most often: it shifts to much depending on the situation.
Anglosphere Society doesn’t generally regard the skin-colour or the sex of a foetus as legitimate grounds for an abortion in the same way as it does Down’s syndrome, for example.
Myself, I lucked out in whole accident-of-birth privilege game and got “White, Male, Cis-, Het,” and indeed “temp. able-bodied” it’s hard to say which privilege benefits me most, but in general I’d list them:
“able-bodied, cis, het, male, white”
then again, since I live in England, perhaps it’s my “well-spoken” middle sort social class background that’s my most important privilege; once you have that, not having any of the others gets a lot easier.

My privilege as a white woman as opposed to a white man, or in opposition to a man of color… well, I’m not sure about that. I’ll have to think about that more.

I understand the second question as inviting a comparison/contrast between your privilege as a white women over a woman of colour, and the privilege of a hypothetical white male you over a man of colour.

The big one here is that a black man has non-negligible chance of being either dead or missing by the time he (fails to) reach middle age, and is at considerable risk of being incarcerated at some point in his life. A white man’s risk of both is low.

Your risk is the lowest of all, but black female’s risk isn’t that high, so your privilege over a black women is less than a white man’s over a black man.

Of course, these are averages. A person’s circumstances are likely to be such that their personal risk is markedly different in the one direction or the other, than the average for their sex/race.

Another privilege you have, related to the above, is that it is much easier for you as a white heterosexual woman to find a viable potential partner of the same race than it is for your black counterpart.

What do you consider to be the greatest (rather, most prevalent) privilege that you currently hold? Let’s leave sex and/or gender out of this one.

Being born in a wealthy western nation with a strong social safety-net (i.e., not the US).

Now, consider that same privilege in light of your sex and/or gender. What changes? Anything?

There are various gender-related horrors afflicting both males and females in different parts of the world that we in the west do not face. The situation for men in war-torn regions is particularly perilous. On the other hand, it is clear that women are downtrodden in many places no so afflicted.